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An opera disguised as an oratorio to get around the church’s ban on profane opera, the impolitic work about past and present is formed as the conflict between extravagance and sanctity.

The latter was an example of how the overuse of this overwrought oratorio made it perfect fodder for parody, and the humor of juicing something comedic with its uber-seriousness.

“But I had always thought of it as an oratorio,” along the lines of Handel’s “Messiah.”

“My soul’s above the sea and whistling a dream,” he sang, a passage from the Nativity oratorio “El Niño” by John Adams, in which Tines makes his Met debut this month.

While the oratorio’s story is fictional, it is based on the true story of 20,000 to 30,000 Jews who reached the Shanghai International Settlement.